With a total of over a hundred million registered accounts by 2016, World of Warcraft is the world's most popular MMORPG by player count. By 2017, the game had grossed over $9.23 billion in revenue, making it one of the highest-grossing video game franchises of all time. At BlizzCon 2017, a "classic" version of the game was announced, which is planned to provide a way to experience the base game before any of its expansions launched. Blizzard announced at BlizzCon 2018 that WoW Classic will be released in the summer of 2019, and will be included with the standard subscription. Read more...

The expansion to the computer game Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, known as The Frozen Throne, had an active professional competition scene, particularly in China, Germany, and South Korea. The game was featured at eSports festivals including the World Cyber Games, the Electronic Sports World Cup, the World e-Sports Games, the World Series of Video Games and the International E-Sports Festival. Outside of the professional circuit, the game had many active competitive circuits, with users at Battle.net ranging between the 70,000 and 100,000 at any given moment. In China, in which Warcraft III was extremely popular due to it being easily available through piracy, fans and users often used an alternative client due to the country's poor internet connections to the outside world. Around 3,000,000 copies of the game were sold in the country. 500,000 Chinese competed in the Chinese qualifiers for the 2006 World Cyber Games. The amount of prize money through the years has been significant with top players winning hundreds of thousands of dollars. As usual in competitive gaming, income for Warcraft 3 professional players flowed from various sources like team salaries from pro-gaming teams and sponsorships usually computer technology related. A famous example was Danish gaming organization known as Meet Your Makers which boasted of paying their players US$300,000 on an annual basis. Similar to older games with huge competitive scenes like Starcraft:Brood War and Counter-Strike 1.6, the popularity of Warcraft 3 steadily declined and towards the end of the previous decade almost all tournaments and players were Chinese. After 2010, with Starcraft 2, League of Legends, and Dota 2 being released and becoming popular, Warcraft 3 gave up its position as one of the prime eSports titles. Read more...

World Championship Series Korea professional competition is centered around events organized by afreecaTV under the Global StarCraft II League (GSL) name, including GSL Code S seasons and GSL Super Tournament events. World Championship Series Circuit professional competition centers around tournaments held under the World Championship Series Circuit name with qualifiers held for each under the World Championship Series Challenger name. Read more...

Rock n' Roll Racing was initially developed as RPMII, a sequel to the company's SNES game RPM Racing. At the end of the project, Interplay marketing added licensed music and changed the name to Rock n' Roll Racing. It is also similar in gameplay to Racing Destruction Set where it got its logic/AI engine and the NES game R.C. Pro-Am developed by Rare in 1988. Read more...

The 2017 tournament involved an initial group stage in which 32 nations qualify; they are determined by the average skill rating of a nation's top 100 players qualify. Following this, the top two teams from each group advance to a single-elimination playoff bracket. The final eight teams continue the rest of the playoff bracket at Blizzard's BlizzCon event. Read more...

Set in the fictional Kingdom of Khanduras (located in the mortal realm), Diablo has the player take control of a lone hero battling to rid the world of Diablo, the Lord of Terror. Beneath the town of Tristram, the player journeys through sixteen randomly generated dungeon levels, ultimately entering Hell itself in order to face Diablo. Read more...

The game revolves around three species: the Terrans, human exiles from Earth; the Zerg, a super-species of assimilated life forms; and the Protoss, a technologically advanced species with vast mental powers. Wings of Liberty focuses on the Terrans, while the expansions Heart of the Swarm and Legacy of the Void focus on the Zerg and Protoss, respectively. The game is set four years after the events of 1998's StarCraft: Brood War, and follows the exploits of Jim Raynor as he leads an insurgent group against the autocratic Terran Dominion. The game includes both new and returning characters and locations from the original game. Read more...

OGN's Yongsan e-Sports Stadium is an example of an esports stadium, where professional StarCraft is played.

Starting in about 2002, pro-gamers started to become organized into teams, sponsored by large South Korean companies like Samsung, SK Telecom and KT. StarCraft is also the most popular computer game competition during the annual World Cyber Games thanks to its Korean fanbase, and it is overall one of the world's largest computer and video game competitions in terms of prize money, global coverage and participants. Read more...

Metzen was the Senior Vice President of Story and Franchise Development at Blizzard Entertainment and assisted the company's projects by providing voice talent for a number of characters, as well as contributing to artistic character design. Outside Blizzard Entertainment, Metzen authored a graphic novel series based on a futuristic second American civil war. Metzen retired in September 2016 to spend more time with his family. Read more...

The game is a turn-based card game between two opponents, using constructed decks of 30 cards along with a selected hero with a unique power. Players use their limited mana crystals to play abilities or summon minions to attack the opponent, with the goal of destroying the opponent's hero. Winning matches and completing quests earn in-game gold, rewards in the form of new cards, and other in-game prizes. Players can then buy packs of new cards through gold or microtransactions to customize and improve their decks. The game features several modes of play, including casual and ranked matches, drafted arena battles, and single-player adventures. New content for the game involves the addition of new card sets and gameplay, taking the form of either expansion packs or adventures that reward the player with collectible cards upon completion. Read more...

In the game, players collect resources, train individual units and heroes and build bases in order to achieve various goals (in single-player mode) or to defeat the enemy player. Four playable factions can be chosen from: Humans and Orcs, both of which appeared in the previous games, and two new factions, the Night Elves and the Undead. Warcraft III's single-player campaign is laid out similarly to that of StarCraft and is being told through the races in a progressive manner. Players can play matches against the computer or against others using local area networking or Blizzard's Battle.net gaming platform. Read more...

Battle.net was the first online gaming service incorporated directly into the games that make use of it, in contrast to the external interfaces used by the other online services at the time. This feature, along with ease of account creations and the absence of member fees, caused Battle.net to become popular among gamers and became a major selling point for Diablo and subsequent Blizzard games. Since the successful launch of Battle.net, many companies have created online game services mimicking Blizzard's service package and the user interface. Read more...

Although Warcraft: Orcs & Humans was not the first RTS title to offer multiplayer games, Blizzard's game persuaded a wider audience thatmultiplayer facilities were essential for future RTS titles. The game introduced innovations in mission design and gameplay elements, which were adopted by other RTS developers. Read more...

In the game, players choose one of seven character classes – Barbarian, Crusader, Demon Hunter, Monk, Necromancer, Witch Doctor or Wizard (with the Crusader being unavailable unless the player has purchased the expansion pack, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and the Necromancer added later as separate online purchase) – and are tasked with defeating the Lord of Terror, Diablo. Read more...

Blackthorne (released as Blackhawk in some European countries) is a cinematic platformer video game developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released for the SNES and DOS in 1994. The cover art for the SNES version was drawn by Jim Lee. The following year, Blackthorne was released for the Sega 32X with modified graphics, higher color palette and four new levels. In 2013, Blizzard made Blackthorne available as a free download. Read more...

Overwatch is a team-based multiplayerfirst-person shooter video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment, which released on May 24, 2016 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. Described as a "hero shooter", Overwatch assigns players into two teams of six, with each player selecting from a roster of nearly 30 characters, known as "heroes", each with a unique style of play whose roles are divided into three general categories that fit their role. Players on a team work together to secure and defend control points on a map or escort a payload across the map in a limited amount of time. Players gain cosmetic rewards that do not affect gameplay, such as character skins and victory poses, as they play the game. The game was initially launched with casual play, with a competitive ranked mode, various 'arcade' game modes, and a player-customizable server browser subsequently included following its release. Additionally, Blizzard has added new characters, maps, and game modes post-release, all free of charge, with the only additional cost to players being optional loot boxes to earn cosmetic items.

Overwatch is Blizzard's fourth major franchise and came about following the 2014 cancellation of the ambitious massively multiplayer online role-playing gameTitan. A portion of the Titan team came up with the concept of Overwatch, based on the success of team-based first-person shooters like Team Fortress 2 and the growing popularity of multiplayer online battle arenas, creating a hero-based shooter that emphasized teamwork. Some elements of Overwatch borrow assets and concepts from the canceled Titan project. After establishing the narrative of an optimistic near-future Earth setting after a global crisis, the developers aimed to create a diverse cast of heroes that spanned genders and ethnicities as part of this setting. Significant time is spent adjusting the balance of the characters, making sure that new players would still be able to have fun while skilled players would present each other with a challenge. Read more...

Set in a fictitious timeline during the Earth's 25th century, the game revolves around three species fighting for dominance in a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy known as the Koprulu Sector: the Terrans, humans exiled from Earth skilled at adapting to any situation; the Zerg, a race of insectoid aliens in pursuit of genetic perfection, obsessed with assimilating other races; and the Protoss, a humanoid species with advanced technology and psionic abilities, attempting to preserve their civilization and strict philosophical way of living from the Zerg. Read more...

Building on the success of its predecessor Diablo (1996), Diablo II was one of the most popular games of 2000. Major factors that contributed to Diablo II's success include its continuation of popular fantasy themes from the previous game and its access to Blizzard's free online play service Battle.net. An expansion to Diablo II, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, was released in 2001. A sequel, Diablo III, was announced in 2008, and was released on May 15, 2012. Read more...

The Overwatch League (abbreviated as OWL) is a professional esports league for the video game Overwatch, developed and fully controlled by Blizzard Entertainment. The Overwatch League aims to follow the model of traditional North American professional sports, using a set of permanent, city-based teams and regular season play, rather than the use of promotion and relegation used commonly in other esports leagues. Each team franchise is backed by an owner and tied to a major city, and players that are signed onto the team are assured a minimum annual salary, benefits, and a portion of winnings and revenue-sharing based on how that team performs in the season.

The League was announced in November 2016, and the first twelve teams were established within the next year. The first season saw regular play from January to June 2018, and playoffs held that July, and an All-Star weekend that occurred in August 2018. A total prize pool of US$3.5 million was available to teams within the first season. Blizzard has since announced the addition of eight expansion teams for the second season. Read more...

Boulding worked as the Video Game Analyst on ESPN for many years. He makes regular appearances on the ESPNEWS Hot List and ESPN2's First Take. Additionally, he writes The Easy Points blog on ESPN.com. Read more...